Embittered
by Aamalie
Summary: They are driven by bitterness and hate, but there's always room for something more. Kouga/Kagura. Drabble collection.
1. Awakening

_Author's Note:_ I'm not usually one to post my drabbles on this site, given my own propensity to skip over drabble dumps when browsing. However, Kouga/Kagura is one of of the few alternate pairings I'm fond of, and it so doesn't get enough love. Thus, here a few tidbits I had hiding away. Enjoy!

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**Awakening**

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He hated her at first sight. There was something about the pride in her unusual cinnamon eyes that set a sense of _this-is-wrong_ ricocheting through his body. He glared at her from across the classroom, his thoughts taking a morbid turn as he wondered what it'd be like to see her blood dripping from her pretty little throat...

-

She was there when he got out of detention that day, and the sight of her almost caused him to miss a step. Then she looked at him and he froze, feeling himself fall into a instinctually defensive stance and the blood start to race in his ears. Seeing his reaction, she laughed cheekily and stopped a short distance away.

"Who were you?" she asked, her low voice tinted with amusement. She looked pale in the rosy sunset—the days were getting shorter now—and he couldn't help but think that she'd look better in brighter colors, rather than the drab blues and slate grays of the school uniform.

"What're you talking about?" he growled, feeling strangely off-balance as the wind suddenly picked up, causing the nearby trees to rustle ominously. _Past tense? _

But then something seemed to change in the girl. Her mouth suddenly curved into a knowing smirk, her gaze sharpening. "Pity, pity. Might of known you'd be as thick as ever. Better wake up soon, wolf-boy. I've waited long enough." Her fingers drifted to her mouth and she blew him a kiss before turning and walking away, hips swaying saucily.

Kouga's reincarnation stared after her, dumbfounded and silent as his brain struggled to remember something locked five hundred years in the past.

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_Written 10/15/2006_


	2. Haunted

**Haunted**

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Kouga does his best to aid in the fight. It's hard now that the shikon shards have been stolen from him. His movements are more sluggish, less precise, but he's still powerful. He never needed them to make him strong; they just helped.

It was because of them that he is here, slashing and fighting his way through the thick twists of Naraku's tentacles and the clouds of choking miasma.

But Naraku is screwing with him.

Every time he turns, he gets a glimpse of her, the wind witch he always hated but never did. Sometimes it's the flash of haughty crimson eyes he catches out of the corner of his eye. Other times it's the sound of her mocking laughter that rings in his ears. More rarely, through the poison in the air he can smell her, just like Naraku but the tiniest bit different in a way that doesn't really matter.

She's dead.

He knows because they told him. He smirked and said that she deserved it. She did.

But the ghost of her is driving him crazy, and Kouga hopes that the battle lasts forever, just so that Kagura can keep haunting him one last time.

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_Written 9/14/2006_


	3. Our Flag is White

**Our Flag is White**

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Neither of them was the sort that gave up easily. So, as they stood there, facing one another, neither was particularly relaxed. Ease was something that did not belong between them. All that truly did belong was animosity, but even that had fallen down to somewhere that was secondary to what had risen to the forefront.

"I should hate you," Kouga told her, his fists clenched at his sides. She blinked her crimson eyes owlishly, practically looking down her nose at him.

"And you're not exactly the most handsome mutt I've ever met. Yet, here we are." Slowly, Kagura drew her fan from her sleeve, flicking it open for a moment to admire the crisp red and brilliant white colors. Kouga tensed visibly, but she merely smirked and held it out to her side. It slid from her fingers slowly and fell, meeting the ground with an innocuous thump, a symbol of their mutual surrender to the inevitable.

What came next, neither knew. But they were willing to find out.

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_Written 10/15/2006_


	4. Bound to Happen

**Bound to Happen**

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She always gets the best of him.

It's like a dance. He attacks and she glides out of reach, her fan angling through the air. She sends out her _fuujin no mai_ and he spins out of range, trying to move so that he can catch her off guard.

But Kagura is always one step ahead.

Until the day she makes a mistake.

Kouga attacks like he always does; and she is already dodging one way before she realizes it was a feint. She tries to correct her error, but not fast enough. His hand comes to crush her windpipe, his other fist knocking her fan out of reach. He blows Kagura from her floating feather. As they land mere feet away with a _thud,_ it shrinks and drifts to the ground, unnoticed.

But even as he stops the life in her, cutting off the flow of her blood in the veins of her neck, she smiles wickedly and fights back, her nails clawing up his arm and the darkness hovering just out of sight.

He smirks cruelly. "You're going to die."

"Bound to," she hisses raggedly, the words barely comprehendible from the way she's slowly suffocating. Fractionally, his grip tightens. A laugh chokes its way out of her throat, as scathing as usual and suddenly her hand darts into her robes and out sweeps her fan—a spare. Wind slaps him across the face and Kouga falls away, stunned. Kagura raises herself, breathing deeply and still smiling.

And then she's gone, leaving Kouga to curse himself for another missed opportunity.

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_Written 10/15/2006_


	5. Respect

**Respect**

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'_Wolf youkai are filth,'_ Kagura thinks, wrinkling her nose as she stares down at the prince of the eastern tribe from where she hovers above him on her feather. She twirls her fan idly between her fingers before lifting it and bringing it back down in one fell movement. Wind blades twist downwards in a fury, and Kouga just barely dodges them, launching into the air but coming just short of where she sits. He falls back to earth with a 'thump'.

"You bitch!" he yells, irate. "Get down here and fight me!"

A peal of mocking laughter escapes her throat. "You think I would ever lower myself for a mongrel like you?" He's nothing, useless, like dirt beneath a fingernail, dirty and unbecoming. Once she has the shards that hide within his calf muscles, he'll be nothing more than a fading memory to scoff at and forget.

But would she forget?

There's something about him, be it in his coarse, dirt-smudged features or his hateful gaze or the defiant curve his mouth makes, but Kagura secretly finds him fascinating. Yes, he is her enemy, and no, he is nowhere near as attractive as Sesshoumaru, but...his determination, his unfaltering desire to exact his revenge reminds her of her own dream, the freedom she aspires for.

And that, however slightly, is enough to make her respect him.

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_Written 9/14/2006_


End file.
